A Man Called Ove is one of those stories where you initially hate the main character but fall completely in love with him by the end of the book. Ove (pronounced ooh-va) is a sad, lonely, and grumpy older man. He believes everything should have a purpose, and one should always follow the rules. Ove does not believe in exceptions, he never smiles, he has zero tolerance for small talk, and he'll tell you to your face if he thinks
It’s a tale as old as time: teens going to parties far beyond their years. For this Johnson County reader, the interest in Jason Reynold's When I Was the Greatest lies in the microclimate of Bed-Stuy in New York City.
This is the story of Amanda and how she overcomes her past and embraces her new life, learning to live with her father, and making new friends. Amanda has a complicated past that she struggles with and does not want people to know about. There are flashbacks, sprinkled throughout the book, which feature Andrew and his battle with everyday life. Andrew and Amanda are connected in ways that most would not understand, as they are the same person only in different versions.
I couldn’t have read A Fine Romance at a more perfect time. It was the perfect book to read while cooped up in a hospital room waiting for a loved one to heal. I sailed right along with Susan Branch and her husband, Joe, as they journeyed to England via ship and explored the country for two months. This book is not only Susan’s diary during their vacation in England, i
Christy Reed has had a difficult year. First she lost both of her parents in a car wreck, then just a few months later her sister Ginny dies in a house fire. Just as Christy is starting to pull herself out of her grieving and begins to accept that she is alone in the world, an envelope arrives in the mail. The envelope is addressed in Ginny’s handwriting and is postmarked just a few days ago. What is going on, and where is Ginny?
Even if you aren’t quite ready to seek out editors and agents, it’s never too soon to start building your platform. And even if you aren’t interested in building an author’s platform, you should at least check out Social Media for Writers for Chuck Wendig’s Forward. That alone garners a recommendation.
Writing is serious business. If you’re a writer, especially a self-published or small-press author, you need to take social media seriously and see it as a business strategy for your work.
In The Curious Nature Guide, author Clare Walker Leslie uses beautiful photographs and exquisite illustrations to entice us to rediscover the wonders that surround us in the natural world. Filled with easy-to-follow prompts and exercises, Walker inspires readers to reduce stress by spending time in nature. Her book includes simple suggestions for reconnecting with the outside world.
Have you ever wanted to run away and become someone else? When we meet Tanya Dubois at the beginning of The Passenger, she has just discovered her husband lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. While he appears to have fallen, Tanya knows that the police will still take a good hard look at her before deciding whether it was an accident, and she can't have that since her current identity won't stand up to close police scrutiny. So Tanya writes a note declaring
Four different people, four separate stories, and four unique perspectives are all tied together by fear. As the school-wide assembly ends, the entire school discovers that all the doors are locked as a student starts shooting. In this fast paced read, which only spans the course of fifty minutes, the reader gets the perspective of four students, who all have reasons to fear the boy holding the gun.
Zebulon Finch, known as "the Black Hand," is a seventeen-year-old gangster operating on the streets of 19th-century Chicago, dealing death and visiting whorehouses. His lifestyle earns him a bullet in the back of the head and a one-way trip to the bottom of Lake Michigan. Only Finch does not die. His ability to move, think, and speak stays, but his body is slowly decomposing. Think Warm Bodies, but with not as nice a protagonist. With no clue why this has happene
